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Yes, I said it, WWIIOL is nearly dead. It lay on the table with IV’s in each arm, pain killers pumping through out its system, and closest family in the room over seeing the last few breaths.

It is a sad deal, but to one of the thousands of players that have “been around a while” it’s nothing of a shock. You see, WWIIOL has been dieing for YEARS. Sort of a slow death with not so many signs of pain either. Oh, don’t get me wrong, the last couple years have been pain filled. Forum rumbles, mass quitting, staff leaving, server crashing, game instability, and the ever important “shut up there is nothing wrong” attitude shoved in the player base faces during it were the neon lighted signs of the time. But before the last couple years it was pretty good times.

Enough about what we already know. Now on to the cause of this…..

These are just opinions of mine, but some pretty strong indicators turned me to writing this report and stating these items. I’m not a professional writer as you can already see, but I still wanted to point out some things that might be used yet to save some aspect of the game or some other game/community teetering on the edge of death.

CRS is ultimately responsible. There is no way around it. Its missteps, blindness, and stubbornness are the #1 reasons this game is nearly dead.

You see, in any business, you must have a solid core to work with. From this core foundation you can build an empire on. CRS had this I believe and worked on the building quite well for many years. At some point though, they fell into the thinking that they knew it all, or at least that is how they were perceived by the community, after all they were the first MMORG large scale map game developers right!!! The requests of long time players and really the overall community fell upon deaf ears. Yes, you see, CRS was not in the wrong, ever (in their own minds). They brushed it off as a “few” upset people that got killed online over and over to many times and were just venting. Yes, that’s it! It’s not us, they thought, its just those stupid people out there (our customers). “F” them, they are not programmers or marketing majors……..we are smarter then they!

Well, that perceived thinking went on for 4 years. More people barked, so that meant there just were more crazy people out there trying to kill off CRS and its ultimate game that would never die.

Wrong.

The problems that the community saw and seen coming were there and are what the game is dealing with now. CRS dug a huge hole for itself and in some respect are still blaming the community for its woes.

The lack of players does not have anything to do with lack of community support. Being around 10 years is proof enough you had support, CRS. You had builders (some didn’t even get their statues). The lack of players is directly related to your opaque and most times offensive approach to any criticisms you received about your game or your staff. Its similar to a restaurant severing bad meal after bad meal and when someone complained about the meal and the prices you yell back at them, call them names, and then shut the door on them and have someone else tape their mouths shut.

That is horrible customer service. And many many former customers were treated that way. Another horrible way to keep people around. The funny part is this, for what? To muzzle people that were pointing you in the direction of what needed to be changed. But CRS would not listen. At this point they were still not in the wrong.

You ignored HUGE game issues and perused “easy” eye candy updates hoping you’d trick people to hang around longer and help fund this “game”. You even managed to draw up some “americans” and post it all over the place to gain more people, a gamble that did not work out. Sort of like borrowing money to build on to your shop but never having the cash flow to afford the payment on the initial loan….then going in and talking the banker into a “little more money” because “we are close to turning the bend”.

WRONG. Bad gamble. You never turned the bend.

You promised and again, your promise fell short. The Americans are STILL NOT IN GAME and you are still ironing out stability issues and some sort of political axis situation with the Americans entering the real map. No Americans but the axis get new semi autos to add to all their toys already in the game for YEARS!

What a mess. More people leave. Less people come and stay. Your employees start to get nervous and leave (move on to better things).

Now we get to the point where the business cannot even do the work anymore because times are so bad. CRS begs those that they nearly choked out 4 years prior (the squads) to help manage, control, and train the flow of new people to the game. The bad thing is that this flow of noobs from the terrible placements of advertising (limited) brought in the worst assortment of people maybe in the history of the game. Numbers of retained people had to be horribly low, as they were never published. From my understanding maybe 1 out of 100 or so stayed and ended up paying some sort of sub costs. But at least you can brag and post graphs (terrible graphs) about number of new people inflow.

This leads to that lovely sub costs. The highest anywhere. Did we mention all the sever issues and dropped promises?? Now we want to charge $17.99 for it. Yeah, we know, you COULD get it cheaper….you just got to sign up for a year or so and that way CRS could burn through you money fast still trying to pay that intial loan from the crazy banker off on the gamble that did not “turn the bend”.

Yes, that’s it. Help us pay for our mistakes and just deal with a game that isn’t running well. DON’T YOU WANT YOUR GAME TO LIVE!!!!!! (that come back got old quick).

So, some still pay and hope for better days. Several hopeful “this will save us” tries were made (that china mess and RA) but the reality of it all and something that was known by all involved is that the numbers were failing, miserably. It was dieing and dieing fast.

So, as the game is laid down on the ER bed….and its breath is slow and heavy panic sets in on the family. Suddenly confession is a good idea. Maybe it will save them. Maybe having everyone donate will bring a miracle. Maybe more money will save it now. Maybe. Maybe not.

But, money will only save jobs for a while. The end is near. We all will pass in time. This game is just going to beat us all at it. Money is not going to save it. Numbers would but CRS has chased all the good ones away. New younger kids don’t want this type of play. Not in mass numbers anyways. Plus, it’s really nothing new. It’s the same game and same graphics just in a different box and different map area. It’s the same thing you cannot sell on WWIIOL Campaign side…..but you’ve masked it well.

Maybe trying to break neck market to some short attention span kids will keep the oxygen on another year, but at sometime it might be best to let it pass. It would be more humane. Better for the family. Better for the community.

You guys let the game die 4 years ago. I commend you for trying to save it now that is so close to being dead. I imagine all family do that when their close ones go or are close to going. I’ve seen it in my family. But I say just let it go. Maybe that’s what it wants.

You should have listened to your community earlier and been more open to them earlier. Not chased squads away and killed squad play. You should have had a better community leader and customer support team….since the customers pay your wage and pay for your hobby of making this game and making it work and stay working. You should muzzled DOC and kept him from the eyes of the public and the ears of them to. He’s one of the most rude and asinine people I’ve ever talked to at times and really made your company look horrible in the forums, on the main page, and in gamers forums. I personally had 15 people hooked on this game that all left directly because of DOCs posts.

Now all of a sudden you want to show everyone where you are at and why you need what you are asking of them. Partially because that is the legal way to ask for donations and show disclosure, but the other part is now you are starting to get it. The community was not so dumb after all.

I hope praying or whatever you are doing now saves your game. I still cannot believe you are now begging for more money from those that you’ve treated so poorly over the years. I also cannot believe you’ve gotten suckers to stick their heads out to give money. Maybe your new community guy is doing his job. Maybe not.

If things fail I hope CRS learns from it on their next venture. Nazi Zombie Reign or whatever is in the works. Keep the sub cost low so people can afford it and continue to afford it. $18 is to much and asking for a whole year commitment is to much also. Don’t chase people away and don’t act like a dictatorship to your concerned customers. Gagging them only makes them more upset and less likely to ever help you in the future. It did in my case.

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Well they are killing (had killed) their game - propably. Many minor and major changes they´ve made in the past chased players away.

It was the best game i´ve ever played (couple years before). Its like entering a bar looking for an "adventure" with a woman, but unfortunatly all of them doesn´t look what you´re expecting. After couple drinks, they magaically turn into pretty ladies.

But this game - hell it was even better than the best looking girl, but now - there cannot be enough alchohol drunken to like the game (mechanics/ruleset/changes and so called "improvements") again.

Yeah, now RA is the great runner - it will be the only big exception, because they started up with 150 different things, but finished none. Ra will be different, because in RA they will change their whole working style - start to work on one thing untill this task is really finished, then they starting the second one .... it is up to you to believe that.

But there is one thing that really works fine - their forum censorship. Posting in their forum critism about the game - they will delete it.

Back to the roots i guess was their latest "task" they´ve started - but only empty words and phrases. They simply give a damn about their paying customer and do what they like to do, which isn´t what their customers are asking for. Some requests shure, they couldn´t do due to technical reasons, but lot of other requests they simply are not willing to do, then there is always that "excuse" - no free time, not enough people to do the job, no ressources (lol, but donating money to social groups last year - there was enough money for that).

See, the crux with rats is - they had a bakery and people liked their lemmon-pie. But they´ve changed their business into a butchery and many people give a damn about their terrible sausage. Many many are asking for having that pie back, but those "businessmen" instead arguing - "Yep, we are glad to announce that our decision is almost exactly the same as our customers are asking for - we proudly present our Ham"

It cannot be said often enough - the game many years before was unique and was providing so much fun for players - still unbeaten by any other game today, but rats decided to make crap of it. It is so sad to see WWIIol going down.

If any serious game company is out there - when rats are pulling the plug from BGE - this is your chance, it is unbelievable what potential in this game is - if developed right and not against the comunity - take this oportunity and relaunch battlegroundeurope. You will have a real bonanza there.

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I played WWIIOL many years ago, and loved it. That was in the golden days of squad-based tactics.

But I think it's time has passed. There are too many bright and shiny alternatives on offer, many of which require no sub at all. None of the alternatives offer the same level of simulation or open world play, but "modern" gamers don't seem to want that anymore. It takes a special kind of player to hide in bush with an ATG for half an hour

And WWIIOL is never going to be able to compete in the "instant action" genre. The game was not designed for it, and the vast maps and view distance are most likely a hindrance in that kind of play.

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I played a few years and quit last year out of shear bordem. Plus none of the squadmates I met when I first joined were on anymore. Only a few of us direhards help out. Great squad and very helpful people. I never did understand the whole way we would deploy and capture. Nothing but zerg fests and allied tanks that were unkillable with any gun at the start of a new map. Glass tigers. Well, I sucked it up cuz it was still fun killing frenchies. I just could not stomach another St Lo fight. Seeing and doping the same thing over and over. On my exit poll, I told CRS if they added more theatres of combat, like Russia or North Africa, I'd have come back. Still waiting and I do not expect it will happen. Hopefully one day somebody will buy out CRS and bring in more dev's to get things rolling.

Roses are redViolets are blueThe reviewer has a mishapen headWhich means his opinion is skewed...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley

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I thought you were banned axishatr...with someone spotting for your 88 fire?

Fire does not show the same from person to person so rpetty pointless having spotters.

Yeah remember when they were promising a server to handle indirect fire? Another broken promise for a broken game.

Mortars in game that you can spot for?

Sounds like an STO.

Boobits - are you Axihatr too?

I'd still like to know why Axishatr lied about how he was banned..

Who? What's your facination with this Axishatr person? No I'm not him/her. And no not mortars, they had said they were trying to develop a way to get indirect fire from the larger at guns and tanks, they said they would put it on a new server due to the power needed. Wonder where this all went? Oh yeah...NOWHERE just like CRS is going.

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This game had a ton of potential but it was a scramble from the begining to make up for a rushed launch.

Remember the total inablility to see anything at night, golf green terrain with nowhere to hide, no real infantry anti-tank weapons. These kinds of problems drove many people away right from the start.

Oddly enough I loved it. Squads that mattered (Canada Corp rules!) and actually worked and trained together. The thrill of sneaking up on a panzer and taking it out with thompson fire through the view slits, truck runs through the enemy back field, 40 minute runs down the rivers to attack a town.

What I think ruined the game was the expansion of the map and over promising features.. There just weren't enough people to justify it and evnough developers to produce it. I remember the mass battles around namur and the other river towns with kamikazee truck runs. (clown cars with 20 infantry in one truck) When the map expanded it most of it was a ghost town.

The problem right from the start was too few resources to implement their whole vision but not enough sense to scale back their promises. The people who wanted strategic bombing waited too long and many got mad and left, people who wanted meaningful navy combat waited too long, got mad and left and a lot of these people would have stayed for other elements of game play if it weren't for the broken promises.

The fact that it has lasted this long shows they had a compelling concept and I still enjoy playing one month a year but they should have remembered the maxim under promise and over deliver.

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I think its funny that something like 3 years ago when I was banned for organizing a walk-out on the axis side because of balance issues. I seen this stuff happening. CRS had a huge amount of support out of the playerbase for a long time. Hell in the first 3 years I watched them tell a couple of people including myself who had a great deal of real world experience with anti-tank weapons, explosives and actual combat, or a gentleman who worked at Aberdene Proving grounds who sent them test information for several of the High Explosive rounds used in the game showing that the game programming was flawed. Instead of just saying, "We nerfed it on the side of gameplay" or saying "we didnt know we will fix it." or just admiting that the game engine couldnt handle it. They instead told many of these people that they didnt know what they were talking about and that DOC had classified US military documents that showed them all the test information they needed.

The biggest issue I had with them was honestly DOCs attitude of he knows everything and is the greatest programmer ever. I remember when they told the AXIS side they were wrong when players reported the AXIS SMG fired backwards. Oh good times....

I gave the game 7 years till I was banned, and I honestly hated to see the game go the way it did. It was one of the best hardcore FPS simulators out there. But it was killed by bad developement choices, and worse coding.

If they had stuck with the original concept of the game and just gave the players the things they promised in the original game book, which I still have, the game would have been the greatest MMOFPS on the market. Instead they gave us things like magic pixie dust bags carried by silent infantry. Or TOW missile launchers used by British Infantry Grenadiers, only worse now by the actual addition of AT Rockets. They still havent fixed the High Explosive model, or the flight engine.

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Originally posted by rendus

I guess you've had a change of heart since 2010.

Yes, I have been a big time fan of the game and even the company that made it. Game allways had the pontential to be the only game I ever would need ,but there are MAJOR problems with how CRS is steering not only there game but there company.

First problem:

HC (player run high command answerable to CRS ) has ALL the control of the players supply with in which to spawn into the game now that does have its cool factor if your part of the HC,but its too much power in the hands of a few. Some HC members take their responsibility very serious to serve the playerbase and this is not whom I have the problem with ..its those that as soon as they receive the power abuse it at every turn.

Second Problem:

CRS and god love them allways were a hands on company with the playerbase but somewhere down the line they deceided that a $17.99 was a good monthly subscription price for a First person shooter game with a ton of bugs and mis-modeling and power mad HC controlled gameplay. They do offer a cell phone like contract plan that if ya bite can get monthly play for $12.99 but how many people are going to lock into a year plan when the game is so broke and its future very bleak that they might not last that whole year ?

And I do hate to admit the game still can be the most fun you will ever have (till the HC rips the supply you were using out from under you) I find it harder and harder to justify the hit on the wallet on a game that might not be here much longer if they continue to make these awfull descisions

Their path is wrong ...I hope the turn it around but they seem to be playing the fiddle while ww2online burns :(

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Well we have seen people posting in the forums about the fun they are having at the moment .

Well im jaded I know ..I guess it comes from expecting the game to live up to the potential that I saw in it and waiting 10 long years for it to blossem

Ive seen the game in its golden years and this aint those golden years no more.I understand the need to evolve and all but when you leave the niche crowd to play to the masses and bend to far over in doing so I think you see what a mistake that deceision has been.

Far too many shoebox shooteres out there to compete with most with better graphics and NO INSANE monthy sub to play

Yes if you play this game (and it allways has a 14 day free trial) you probably will have fun that is till you really sink your teeth into it and then thats when you start seeing how BAD an idea of allowing another player in control of your very spawning IS.

Then when ya start to pay for the experiance it just seals its own fate .Which is the trash heap of all the other games and companies that lost their sight on the reason they existed so long in the first place...there loyal paying players that used to rush home to play their once GREAT GAME

I dont want ww2online to go away but even a LONG time 10 year subscriber can see how CRS lost their way in the last year or so....people will NEVER pay $17.99 PER MONTH in a world of free to play (especially for a first person shooter) Just aint ever going to happen long term and in the numbers they need to save this game.

I post all this not to kill the game off but in the slim hope that CRS checks these forums out and might wake up before its too late.

I cant post anything like these posts over there ...they aint listening and there mods are over-zealous that they wont entertain anybodies cries to wake up before its too late.

I feel the end is near for us ww2onliners ...though I could be wrong "Vanguard" is still kicking (Star wars galaxies is dead though in the same breath)

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Well we have seen people posting in the forums about the fun they are having at the moment .

Well im jaded I know ..I guess it comes from expecting the game to live up to the potential that I saw in it and waiting 10 long years for it to blossem

Ive seen the game in its golden years and this aint those golden years no more.I understand the need to evolve and all but when you leave the niche crowd to play to the masses and bend to far over in doing so I think you see what a mistake that deceision has been.

Far too many shoebox shooteres out there to compete with most with better graphics and NO INSANE monthy sub to play

Yes if you play this game (and it allways has a 14 day free trial) you probably will have fun that is till you really sink your teeth into it and then thats when you start seeing how BAD an idea of allowing another player in control of your very spawning IS.

Then when ya start to pay for the experiance it just seals its own fate .Which is the trash heap of all the other games and companies that lost their sight on the reason they existed so long in the first place...there loyal paying players that used to rush home to play their once GREAT GAME

I dont want ww2online to go away but even a LONG time 10 year subscriber can see how CRS lost their way in the last year or so....people will NEVER pay $17.99 PER MONTH in a world of free to play (especially for a first person shooter) Just aint ever going to happen long term and in the numbers they need to save this game.

I post all this not to kill the game off but in the slim hope that CRS checks these forums out and might wake up before its too late.

I cant post anything like these posts over there ...they aint listening and there mods are over-zealous that they wont entertain anybodies cries to wake up before its too late.

I feel the end is near for us ww2onliners ...though I could be wrong "Vanguard" is still kicking (Star wars galaxies is dead though in the same breath)

They provide a simulation that is unique - for that is that too much? I could spend more on cold beer in ONE night than a measily $17.99 per month.